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Total Greek debt is currently estimated at 175 per cent of GDP and forecast to rise to nearly 190 per cent next year.

Disagreement over the state of Greece's future finances threatens to further delay the next 31.5 billion euro-tranche of Greece's second bailout, pushing it close to bankruptcy.

First estimates by inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund show the debt would be at least 130 per cent of GDP in 2020. The IMF differs from the Commission, eurozone officials have told Reuters, with the Commission more optimistic.

Troubled times: The Greek government has been making difficult decisions in an attempt to lower the country's debt to a manageable level

Asmussen told De Tijd that finance ministers had to look at a range of options to help Greece, ‘including voluntary debt buy-backs, lowering the interest rate on outstanding loans and asking for a higher Greek primary surplus.’

A radical strategy would be for eurozone countries, which have made loans totalling 127 billion euros to Greece under the two bailout programmes, to write off some of that.But Asmussen said that was unlikely.

‘The appetite for a second restructuring is extremely low among member states,’ he said, referring to the private sector write down of Greek debt earlier this year.

Tough test: Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras reads his papers during a meeting in parliament this week to decide on new painful austerity measures

He said it was still better to keep Greece within the eurozone and that the country may get two more years of financing, although there was still no agreement on how to do this.

‘In the next few days, we need an agreement on further measures in Greece and additional aid from the other euro area countries to ensure debt sustainability,’ he said.

New figures released earlier this week revealed that one in four Greeks are now out of work as the jobless rate rose to a new record high of 25.4 per cent in the 39th consecutive monthly increase.

A crippling, austerity-fuelled recession continued to take its toll on the unemployment rate, which hit more than double the eurozone average.

Unemployment has soared to 25.4 per cent from 18.4 per cent just a year ago.

More than half – 58 per cent – of all young people aged 15-24 are unemployed, compared with 20 per cent just four years ago.

Only Spain has a higher jobless rate in the EU, with 25.5 per cent of people out of work.

The dire situation looks likely to
get even worse, as the Greek parliament passed an austerity package
worth 13.5 billion euros on Wednesday.

The
vote on the painful austerity measures necessary to keep the country
afloat represented the sternest test yet for Greece's fragile coalition
government.